Annual Report 2002-2003: Bruce Fraser on Fatigue

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Fatigue

One of the challenges for Gay Men’s Health as an organisation growing in stature in the past year was to keep its work fresh, new and exciting. This lays at the heart of our community development approach to the work undertaken. Another challenge has been that socially HIV is no longer seen as having the urgency it once did. It is no longer new, and with the continuing development of successful therapies to combat HIV, it is no longer seen as the terminal illness it once was.

This has resulted in a growing lack of interest amongst people in the risk of HIV infection and in the lives of people living with the disease. It is a constant battle to try and find new ways to keep people interested in the topic and further more to make them realise that the information is as relevant today as it was ten years ago.

Gay Men’s Health has continued to work with other agencies to ensure new ways are found of making both sexual and emotional health matters of importance to gay and bisexual men through a variety of means of which you will read further in this Annual Report.

Along with the steady climb of new infections of HIV in the past year we have seen the re-emergence of sexually transmitted infections such as syphilis, encouraging statutory and voluntary organisations to make a combined effort to keep new infection rates of STIs down.

It isn’t just physical health that poses challenges either. Emotional well-being and mental health continue to be high on the GMH agenda of work and we see no signs of that abating. On top of the variety of issues raised comes the problem of stigma and discrimination towards men living with HIV from within the gay community itself. Once again GMH is at the forefront of attempting to tackle these life issues.

So a year of challenges has led to GMH finding new ways of developing work. These new ways have been in partnership with both the statutory and voluntary sector in Scotland and with over 30 organisations in the Sverdlovsk Region of Russia. They are always evidence based, always professional and continue to ensure that GMH is seen as one of the leaders in the field of health for gay men.

Annual Review 2002-2003